Jens Hegg

I recently received my Ph.D from University of Idaho in the interdisciplinary Water Resources Program with a certification in Statistics.

I am interested in the ecology of animal movement and migration, specifically the trade-offs that animals must balance to optimize their fitness within a complex and changing environment full of competition from other organisms and rapidly changing evironmental conditions.

Within this focus on life history and migration I use isotopic tracers, bio-energetic modeling, growth trajectories and geospatial modelling techniques to understand the selective pressures that shape the life-history of fish populations across the landscape.

This video is a funny and instructive introduction to me and the basics of my work.

Outside ecology I have many interests, coming to academia on a circuitous path, starting with a B.A. in Biology from Macalester College in 2000. In the intervening years I worked in the field studying endangered river mussels in the Hornbach Lab, the distribution of non-game fish with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency among others. I also spent significant time working in research and development laboratories; in renewable bio-plastics with Natureworks LLC, and designing new coronary stents with Boston Scientific which lead to 4 US patents.

No problem. Get in touch if you need any specific names. I have that thesis tucked away somewhere. They were using R. Iyengari I believe, or perhaps also R. Culicivorax and had a whole system for mass producing them for dispersal into seasonal ponds. I never heard what the end result was but it made for an interesting senior thesis.

I did a senior thesis with the Roraima Secretary of Health looking at efficacy of similar nemotodes on malarial mosquitos. It was a joint project with the Cuban government in Boa Vista, Roraima. Do you know of that work? They may have knowledge about scaling this up in the future.
I like your project! Good luck.

Awesome! Hey cousin! Thanks for the donation and also thanks for the tip. It took me a second to find, it's .org, but wow that is super cool. I've honestly been trying on a small scale to do this sort of semi-automated analysis with otolith analysis in my lab group. I don't have enough samples to make it worth their time...but who knows about the future. I like these sorts of citizen science ideas for big data. Reminds me of the SETI screensaver from the old days.

Apr 14, 2016

Big Fish a Long Way from Home: Using ear bones and teeth to unravel migration in Amazonian fish

Excellent! I hear Stephen is playing a concert with a pretty incredible piano player this week. Thanks for the book recommendation and the vote of confidence. I'll certainly be sharing on Facebook over the coming month. Keep in touch.

Apr 14, 2016

Big Fish a Long Way from Home: Using ear bones and teeth to unravel migration in Amazonian fish

I'm really excited by the project, and I think it's really timely. We were the first to use this isotopic technique but just the other day another paper was posted in pre-print with a very similar study that confirmed our earlier results (http://bit.ly/1S49pPr , paywall I can send the PDF if anyone wants to read it). Another group also just submitted a paper. Unfortunately, the pace of dam building is what is finally spurring people to do this work...along with the fact that until last year there weren't good baselines for the isotopic chemistry of the river or techniques like ours to predict it. So, there's a convergence of really urgent need and technological ability that makes this possible finally.

Apr 12, 2016

Big Fish a Long Way from Home: Using ear bones and teeth to unravel migration in Amazonian fish